Johnny Manziel as won the Heisman Trophy for 2012 after a story book season as a red shirt freshman at Texas A&M University. No one had the Aggies picked to be in the top 25 in the pre season polls. No one even mentioned Johnny Manizel as even an All American candidate, much less as a possibility for the Heisman Trophy. That was before he started racking up impressive yardage even though the Aggies were playing in their first year as a member of the SEC west which is well known to be one of the toughest divisions in NCAA football, anywhere. Before “Johnny Football”, as the fans and then the media began to call him, became the first SEC player to throw for over 3,000 yards and rush for 1,000 more.
Manziel has done all of this at the tender age of 19 years old. That’s correct, he turned 20 the day before the Heisman Ceremony and became the first freshman in history to receive the coveted Heisman Trophy.
Manziel is from Kerrville, Texas and that’s football country. As Manziel said, “ You see the movie “Friday Night Lights”. Kerrville was a lot like that. The town was closed down for a high school football game.
But Johnny Football’s greatest game came at, of all places, Tuscaloosa, Alabama where the Aggies went to take on the number one team in the country, the Alabama Crimson Tide. After posting 345 yards in total offense and defeating mighty Alabama 29-24 in their home stadium, fans and sports writers alike started to take notice of this outstanding freshman quarterback.
The runner up to Johnny Manziel at the Heisman Ceremony was Manti Te’o, the linebacker from Notre Dame who led his team to an undefeated season. Te’o was one of very few defensive players ever to be considered for the Heisman Trophy. Manti arrived at the ceremony wearing a set of traditional congratulatory leis to honor his home state of Hawaii. Before arriving at the ceremony, Manti Te’o had already won all three of the top honors given to the top defensive player of the year. The Butkus Award, the Lombardi Award and the Bronko Nagurski Award. All of this goes along with being a Consensus First Team All-American plus being named to the First Team Academic All American Squad.
Manziel and Te’o are two true blue American Heroes.
